Today’s News

Keck's Exclusives: True Blood Ups the Insanity

As if there were ever any doubt, Bon Temps will establish itself as our nation's most undesirable town to live in when True Blood's fourth season premieres June 26 on HBO. "There's going to be a lot of people not getting along," says Joe Manganiello, who plays hunky werewolf Alcide Herveaux. "The witches are starting trouble with the vampires, and the werewolves, of course, don't like the vampires, either. And the fairies don't like the vampires." Mix in a grotesque meal and a feathery feud, and you have a true recipe from hell. Here are some tidbits to get your blood swirling.

GROSS GRUBGrab your barf bags! Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) and his witchy boyfriend Jesus Velasquez (Kevin Alejandro) will face a culinary challenge straight out of Survivor. "Lafayette and I go on a huge adventure where some unfortunate things happen," Kevin reports. "We end up having a very creepy breakfast with some really interesting people, and Lafayette has a real hard time with it." So what's on the menu? Cagey Kevin tells me the Bayou boys will chow down on one of these three delicacies: a) a cow face, b) a goat tongue or c) poisonous snake venom. "It's going to turn your stomach!"

FOWL PLAYShape-shifting brothers Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) and Tommy Mickens (Marshall Allman) will be taking to the skies in a feathery owl versus hawk mid-air chase. The scene required both men to strip down in the middle of the woods on a cold winter night in Los Angeles. "At one point, I had to match the trajectory of a hawk flying up to a trainer on a crane by jumping high and spreading out my arms to fly off," recalls Marshall. He adds that this is only the beginning of the menagerie madness as "Tommy takes shape-shifting to a whole other level with a unique wild-card creature that will prove to be a game-changer in Bon Temps' supernatural power play." Hmmm... Am I hearing the thunderous footsteps of Godzilla?